The Register's Editorial: Senate owes every nominee a vote

Grassley's 'ideological balance' view is just wrong

5:02 PM,
Nov. 9, 2013

FILE - In this May 1, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama's nominee for the Federal Housing Finance Authority director Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., waves during the announcement of his nomination in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. Democrats are struggling to halt a Republican blockade against Obama's pick of Watt and of Patricia Millett for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

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The Register?s Editorial

For 17 days in October Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives tied Congress into knots over the federal budget. Within days of resolving that crisis with some talk of bipartisanship in Congress, Republicans in the Senate were back at it with a filibuster to block confirmation of two of the president's appointments.

Fifty-six senators voted to confirm Melvin Watt to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and 55 voted to confirm Patricia Millett to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But the nominations needed 60 votes to end the Republican filibuster, ...